Vienna

Vienna was the last stop on our November trip around the European Continent. It was a sad time for the both of us as our awesome trip was coming to an end, but it turns out that Vienna is a nice romantic city we could relax in. We toured the city by ourselves, first walking to the museum districts and then we ended up finding the Austrian Parliament building, gowned with beautiful architecture. We also found ourselves in a traditional Austrian Christmas Market in Rathaus-platz, sipping on some spiced hot wine in a cool Vienna mug. This Christmas Market is based on Austrian beers, wines, chocolates, and traditional crafts and baking; quite enough to get you satisfied, and we would highly recommend traveling in November or December just to visit these Markets that are found all over Europe around Christmas time. It was also here that Colleen discovered that "wieners" are from Wien (Vienna) after seeing a really large sign advertising the Wieners. After going easy on the chocolates, we decided to walk across the beautiful blue Danube (it's green over there), and we found ourselves at the base of a giant ferris wheel, which carries small rooms that can fit around 10 people instead of 2-seater chairs. It's found in a park called Prater, which also has a small carnival with rides and food vendors. It was a bit late in the season when we were there and so we were the only ones walking down the foggy boulevard. We went on the Go-Karts a total of 3 times, and Colleen beat Jesse every time. The rest of our trip was spent looking at old palaces, touring palace grounds, visiting different markets and visiting Vienna's Museum of Ethnology, where we saw the famous Montezuma's feather headdress. The city was wonderful, and we would definitely like to have had more time to visit the famous Opera and the different museums around this city that is full of so much history. But alas, we had to move on, and in order to catch our flight from Linz, a smaller Austrian town two hours northwest of Vienna, we had to leave Vienna at 05:44, which means we had to get to bed early the night before. We're writing this now that in London, after safely arriving and making it back to our hostel this morning. Thank you for all your well wishes and for reading. This post marks the end of our November adventure, but be warned, there will be more adventures to come...

Pudabest

After a long day on the train, we finally arrived in Budapest, Hungary, and right away, we went to the largest of the famous thermal baths that Budapest boasts of: Szechenyi Baths. It was glorious and warm and totally relaxing. The next morning, we went on an awesome free walking tour that took us around the city, including along the river and up a big hill to the castle district. Budapest is divided into two parts divided by the Danube (or Duna) River; the Buda side and the Pest side (pronounced Pesht). The Buda side is more hilly, is a more posh area, includes the castles district and has a beautiful, white Matthias Church at the top of the hill overlooking the river. While the Pest side is flatter and has streets organized in the same way as Paris. The castle district on the Buda side is also home to the Royal Palace, which hasn't been in use since the Hapsburgs, as well as the president's office, the old Ministry of Defence (once a four-story building, but after a bomb attack during WWII, it has been reduced to two), as well as other old buildings from different points in Budapest's history. After the tour, Jesse and I went to find lunch at a Christmas Market near our hostel. Jesse and I shared a traditional Hungarian sausage, a bowl of goulash, a bowl of Rooster Testicle Stew (interesting, I know!) and a cup of the most delicious hot wine that we had ever tasted. Later that night, Jesse and I went to the Budapest Hooters branch strictly for beer and wings. The wings came with ranch. Ranch! In Budapest! Anyways, the next day was our third and last day in Budapest and so we decided to go to the baths again to relax and warm up. That night we decided to check out one of the cities famous Ruin Bars. These are buildings that were once abandoned and dilapidated, but some artists came along, fixed them up, gave each room a different theme and then turned it all into a bar. They are actually really cool. I'm not too sure what the theme of the room was that we were sitting in, but it was pretty cool and had light fixtures made out of old welding helmets. In other rooms, there were bathtubs cut in half and turned into seats, an old car turned into a booth and various other ingenious designs around the bar. At this bar, they were selling carrots as a traditional Hungarian thing, hence the carrot pictures. The next morning, we took the train to Wien (Vienna), the last stop on our adventure.

Krakow and Auschwitz

From Berlin, Jesse and I took a 9 hour train to Krakow, Poland, where we stayed for the night. Our hostel really sucked so we tried to spend as little time there as possible, which wasn't too hard as we were only there for a night and out all the next day to Auschwitz, which was only a 2-hour train away from Krakow. Auschwitz was emotionally draining for us; so many horrors went on in this place during the war, horrors that previously, nobody thought was humanly possible. We ended up only visiting the first camp of the four in the area-- we didn't visit the gas chambers in Auschwitz II -- as we were completely drained after only a few hours in the memorial. The bunkhouses where the Jews and other POW's were kept are preserved, and the interiors are filled with small exhibitions featuring different aspects of the life (and death) of the prisoners. One building had entire rooms filled with the suitcases and shoes of the victims of Auschwitz, and in another room, there was a separate room completely filled with hair that was cut from the heads of all the Jewish men and women and children before and after they were sent to the gas chambers. The hair was meant for factories as raw materials for making blankets and textiles for the Third Reich. They can prove that they were murdered because the hair fibres tested positive for the Zyklon-B poison that the Nazis used to gas them in the chambers. As I said, it's really harrowing stuff. Each bunkhouse has more and more evidence and stories that chill you to the bone, and every bunkhouse has photos of prisoners lining all of the halls that you have to walk down. The effect given is like a haunted house, where you think that because of so much death and murder, there must be ghosts watching you. Pretty Spooky. We returned on the same train back to Krakow, trying to forget our woes, but ended up just getting depressed. The city of Krakow was able to cheer us a bit as it is really a beautiful city and the main square in Old Town has some cool clock towers and a nice market during the day. During the night even, they have some of the coolest bars and clubs with very cheap drinks. They use their own currency, with one Euro equaling about 4.1 Zloty, but the cheap food and drink bring the price to about par for richer countries using the euro. The city is also just small enough to be able to traverse it by walking, but you can still rely on the buses and trams that run around Old Town. From Krakow we took a night train that lasted about 10 hours to Budapest and to new adventures.

Ich bin ein Berliner

We reached Berlin by train and found our hostel using Berlin's ultra-fast S-bahn Berlin train. Out hostel had a pool, so Jesse and I relaxed and went for a nice swim before having an early night to catch up on sleep. The next day, we went to the East-Side Gallery, which is the largest surviving section of the Berlin Wall. It spans more than a kilometre, but we walked the entire thing because each part of the wall was painted by artists from around the world in the 90's. It is now covered in graffiti, but it still looks amazing. From there, we took the S-bahn to the Victory Arch (which for some reason had people underneath dressed in costumes you could take a picture with), from there we walked to the Reichstag and then on to a Soviet war memorial that had real tanks on display. It was super cold, so we headed back and went for another swim.

Münster

Jesse and I took an early train out of Amsterdam and headed to Münster to visit with my friend, Jakob, for a day. Jakob toured us all around Munster, taking us to the castle -- now the university -- which was completely leveled by a bomb during the war and rebuilt brick by brick by the students that attended it. Behind the university, there are botanical gardens and large greenhouses that contains tropical trees and bushes. Inside the greenhouses, we found projectors playing cartoon economics lessons, which we found to be completely wack, but later it was revealed to us that it was part of an art display. Jakob then brought us to his flat to watch a Germany vs Netherlands fütbol match with a bunch of Jakob's friends all squished into his tiny flat's kitchen. Unfortunately, the score at the end was 0-0, but ah well. Afterwards, we got all dressed up and went out to Night of the Profs; a night on which a few professors from the university act as DJs at 5 clubs and everybody buys tickets and gets to dance and have a good time. So we danced until 5 am and then headed back to Jakob's flat in the frosty air. After a few hours of sleep, Jesse and I packed up our bag and caught our train to Berlin. [Unfortunately, we forgot our camera when we went out around Munster and to Night of the Profs, and so we only have a few pictures from Night of the Profs courtesy of Jakob and his friend.]

Amsterdam is Glamsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam in the evening after the sun had already set. However, the darkness of the night did no deter us, as we checked into our super cool hostel, and then hit the town. The city had set up most of it's Christmas lights already and so everything was beautifully lit and bright. And although we were there only for the night and the early morning, it didn't deter us from seeing and experiencing all we could of this beautiful canal city.

Juno Beach

Rather than spend another day in smelly Paris, Jesse and I took a train to Normandy to visit Juno Beach. At Juno Beach, just outside of the village of Courseulles-sur-Mer, we visited the Canadian Juno Beach Centre which memorializes the beach taken by Canadian forces during the D-Day invasion. The Centre is only manned by Canadians, so we met some nice employees from Montreal who we hung out with while waiting for the introductory film to start. After seeing everything that this Centre had to offer, we headed out to the beach to play in the sand as the tide was coming in. We found some sea-shells and sat in the grass for a while before treating ourselves to a few pastries and then we headed back to the train station to continue our journey to Amsterdam.

Paris

Paris smells. That was the first impression we got. I'm not sure if it was the drunk Frenchman on the Metro that crapped himself and passed out with his pants down, or the pee puddles around every corner or the overfilled garbage, but it just didn't smell pretty. It's like the city of love is starting to ripen and go sour. Despite the smelly business, we made it to our hostel and immediately started to trek around the city. We visited the classic French monuments, such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysée, the Musée du Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Sacre Coeur. On the first day Jesse ate a bit of cheese at the Arc du Triomphe, and we had hot chocolate while walking down the Champs-Élysée towards the Louvre, where we spent the entire day staring at paintings and getting stared at by marble statues. On a side note, we found the French have a few of the Metopes still from the Parthenon in Athens. At Notre Dame we played with the leaves left by the trees in the courtyard. On November 11, we walked to the Arc du Triomphe to watch the Remembrance Day service which featured guards on horses and a large french flag flying inside the arch! It was neat to see and we may have even seen the French president drive by in his car. After that, we climbed up the Eiffel Tower all the way to the top. We then made our way to Notre Dame, where we played in the leaves fallen from the trees in the courtyard. After a warm meal, we went out for a walk to take pictures of Sacre Coeur. Thus ended our time in Paris.

Bern, baby Bern

After our train from Milan was delayed for 2 hours due to a person on the tracks, we finally made it to Bern, Switzerland. My friend, Rahel, who was an exchange student to my school about 3 years ago, met us at the train station and escorted us to her place where we stayed during our time in Bern. Rahel took us all over Old Town; to an 18th century Cathedral that had an amazingly designed ceiling and beautiful woodwork; to see Bern's 3 brown bears; up a huge hill that gave a splendid view of the city; and to find a baby-eating ogre fountain that Jesse had read about online. After showing us everything there was to see in Bern, Rahel cooked us a traditional Swiss dish with potatoes and sausage, it was delicious. Bern is a quaint Alpine town, so there isn't a busy night-scene or business district. It was a good time to relax and take in a breath of cold mountain air before traveling on to France.

Milan

On our way to Switzerland, we made one last stop for the day in the Italian city of Milan. On our way from the train station to the main Cathedral, we came upon a sort-of flash mob. There was a DJ there, and there were people dancing, and it was kind of flashy. Anyways, the Cathedral is an immense white stone building with a huge courtyard. We climbed up the small stone passageway to the top of the Cathedral and sunbathed in the glorious sunshine. From the top of the church, we could see all over the city of Milan and even the Alps in the distance. The roof of this Duomo is quite amazing as it has hundreds of sculptures of saints in every nook and cranny and on all the spires. They are still undergoing restorations works on the main spire and on several pillars, but it still looks brilliantly white. After we toured the top, we climbed back down and walked around until we found the Castello Sforza. Castello Sforza is a Renaissance fortress and a former home of Leonardo da Vinci. From there, we made our way back to the train station, stopping at the aquarium to take some pictures of some fish that were in a fountain outside, and then we continued our journey to Bern, Switzerland.

The Fall of Rome

Rome was more than we expected. Around every corner there was something old; we found it to be much like Athens in this aspect. We opted for a hop-on/hop-off bus tour rather than trying to figure out public transport. Our first stop was the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, which got us really excited for Rome. We first walked all around the ancient Palatine Hill, which included the old markets, the Forum, Caesar Augustus' villa, and other interesting sites that are still being excavated. From there, we crossed the road and took our first step into the Colosseum. It is huge, and there are all sort of tourist traps around it. People offer you tours for 'very cheap, we treat you well' and everyone sells knock-off gladiator helmets and other things you saw in Russell Crowe movies. But we decided to do it on our own; no audio-guides, no tours, just an entry ticket and reading the signs. Every now and then we'd listen to a fact from other guided groups, but really we were there to experience it for ourselves. We also did this for the Vatican; the Vatican offered more sites and treasures than the Colosseum, but we preferred to do it on our own anyway. In order to enter into the Vatican, we had to go through a medical detector and let our bag get checked. No worries, it is totally worth it, because St. Peter's Basilica was absolutely stunning and we were able to see the tomb of the Popes and the famous Michelangelo statue that stands in the Northeast corner of the church. Also inside the Vatican, we found they had the Vatican Museum, which houses the Sistine Chapel and other precious works of art and history. We couldn't include any pictures of the Sistine Chapel because we weren't allowed to film it or take any pictures. After seeing all that the Vatican City had to offer, we made our way to Castel sant'Angelo, a former home of the Borgias; and Trevi fountain, one of the most beautiful fountains that is carved with great white marble statues. Here, we threw in some coins for good luck. From there we took a gander on down the road to the Pantheon, an ancient pagan temple that has withstood the test of time and is now a famous church. The Romans built it with a huge hole in the dome, so that we could see the sky from inside, and making it one of the coolest bits of architecture we have seen in Rome. As the sun set in West and the streetlights came on, Jesse and I walked to the Spanish steps and climbed that steep staircase, finding a really cool old church at the top. After walking all over it, we sat on our butts, and scooted down the stairs. From there, we made our way to Isola Tiberina, Tiber Island, and walked all over it in the dark. This was our last night in Rome; a truly remarkable experience. We spent a total of 3 nights in Rome, which we figure is the perfect amount of time to sight-see all the interesting bits, although we definitely want to return some day.

Venice: jaywalking could lead to accidental drowning

As if the city wasn't wet enough. Jesse and I rode the train into Venice arriving with a drizzling rain that continued to fall all day. Despite the rain, we made the most of our one and only day that we had to spend in Venice--the city of gondoliers, paninis and watery streets. We took the city water bus down the Grand Canal past the big cruise ships to the Piazza San Marco to see the Dogès Palace. This palace is a beautiful building, built with many different kinds of marbles. During the winter season, Venice floods and so in many piazza's and squares, boardwalks have to be erected for the common folk to walk upon to keep their little toesies dry. From there, Jesse and I walked around, turning corner, squeezing past other tourists down narrow streets between tall buildings, getting lost the deeper and deeper we got into Venice. To make matters worse, we were soaked and miserable and all we wanted to do was sit down and eat our cheese and sausage and drink our wine on a nice and dry bench. Alas, to no avail, for we could not find a bench anywhere and we had to settle for a semi-dry doorstep down a random lane. The wine warmed our bellies enough to get us to a water bus stop and from there we went to Lido Island for some hot chocolate and a pastry. After warming ourselves for a good hour, we took the water bus back to the train station, hopped on our train and waved 'goodbye' to Venice and 'hello' to Rome.

Da Firenze

We arrived directly from Pisa via the small regional train running down the Arno river, coming to the brightly lit marble-lined streets that makes up the grand city of Florence. To get to our hostel, we had to walk past the Duomo, which completely blew us away. My first thought was, "We have to climb this." The next day we did climb it, and we discovered that the entire interior of the dome is a giant fresco covered in a depiction of judgment day; it was really cool to see. The Duomo remains the tallest building in Florence and as a result, it offers a breathtaking bird's eye view of the whole city with it's classical red-tiled roofs, which have remained virtually unchanged since the Renaissance period. From the Duomo we made our way to the Ponte Vecchio, a famous renaissance bridge that is now covered in expensive jewelery shops. Across the bridge, Colleen stuck her fingers up a stone lion's nose before we headed back to the other side of the river to see the marble statues at the Piazza della Signori. Aside from statues of famous people of history, like Galileo and Machiavelli, there were also renaissance statues of Greek and Roman gods including Perseus with the head of Medusa, and a (copy of) Michelangelo's David. Every corner brought us to a new masterpiece, and every street had it's own charm and wonders. It was one of our favourite cities, and I don't think we'll see another one like it if we searched the whole world.

Pisa, a little of piece of Italy

On November 1st at 6am, Jesse and I flew out of London to the first stop on our latest adventure. We arrived to blue skies and gelato in Pisa, marking the 1st of a 24 day train trip around Europe. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa from the airplane after flying over the snow-capped Alps and flying across the great blue of the Adriatic Sea, and couldn't wait to stand beneath it's marble columns. The airport provided a bus shuttle that moved everyone 30 feet from the plane to the terminal. It was the shortest bus trip we've ever taken. We walked all the way from the airport to the Leaning Tower, stopping only for gelato and to take a picture of a statue missing a bit of stonework from what we think was a cannon shot at its base. We could see the Leaning tower from quite a distance away, and it took a while to figure out just how big the tower was due to its position in the courtyard of the Duomo of Pisa. When we got there, we were gobsmacked to learn that we could actually climb the Tower and so, after purchasing a ticket and ditching our bags at the luggage drop, we climbed on up. As we ascended the stairs, our centers of gravity would shift depending on which side of the tower we were walking upon. The top offered views of tile-roofed villas and centuries old walls--it was truly a sight to behold. After sneaking a quick lick to one of the bells, we were finally forced to descend with the rest of the people from our tour group. Before heading off to find dinner, Jesse ran and bought cheese so that he could fulfill a life-long dream of eating cheese in front of national monuments around Europe. For dinner, we found a near-by restaurant and ate pizza and drank wine like true grown-ups before catching the next train to Florence for the night. Thus concluded our first day in Italy.

Irish Road Tripping

A week after my dad came to visit us, Jesse's sister, Priscilla, and her husband, Ryan, came to London and together the four us went on to Ireland. We started in Dublin, where we toured the Guinness Factory, learning to make the perfect pour, and ate at one of the oldest pubs in Ireland. The next day, we rented a car and drove to the cottage that we'd rented in Northern Ireland. From the cottage we made day trips, driving on the crazy narrow roads with ridiculous speed limits out to windy Giant's Causeway; the delicious Bushmills Irish Whiskey Distillery; Downhill Beach, where we played barefoot in the sand; Mussenden Temple and Downhill Demesne, which were built in the 1800s by a Bishop who fancied himself a Roman enthusiast and worthy of a castle; Dunluce Castle, where we climbed all over without actually paying to go in; Ballintoy Harbour, where we had delicious tea and a pastry after climbing all over the rocks, dodging the waves; and finally, Cushendun Caves, where we threw rocks into the caves in the fading evening light to see them spark. The next day, we drove to Galway, though it rained and the wind chilled us to the bone, we still went out and had a blast, playing cards, drinking Heineken and listening to Irish music at a pub. We drove back to Dublin, the next day and with the sun setting at our backs, Ryan and Priscilla flew to Edinburgh to continue their trip and Jesse and I flew back to London, and back to work.

That one time my Dad and I went to Dover by Colleen

After not seeing him for nearly a year, my dad came to visit Jesse and I in October. It was his first trip overseas and I was super duper excited! I made him walk from Earl's Court to Waterloo on his first day, but once there, I finally relented and let him hop on a double-decker bus to Greenwich, where we had dinner. During the week that my dad was visiting, we took a day-trip to the coast to see Dover, it's castle and cliffs, and the English Channel. Though rain threatened to fall, we climbed the big hill and toured all over the ancient castle grounds that have been in use since before the time of the Romans. On the hilltop stands a Roman lighthouse, an 9th century church, a castle and keep built by Henry II (husband of Eleanor of Aquitaine) and WWI and WWII bunkers, lookout posts, tunnels and artillery. From up on the hill, we could see the coastline of Calais in France and the down the Dover coast to the famous white cliffs. It was a great day on the coast, just me and my dad.:)

The Thames Barrier

On a cloudy and drizzling day (also in August), Jesse and I took some Barclay Bikes for a spin to the Thames Barrier. It was quite the adventure as we couldn't quite bike the entire way, but had to improvise and find our way along the Thames path. It wasn't all bad news as Jesse and I discovered this neat '50s-style diner where we had some delicious fries before continuing on our way. At the Thames Barrier, we found it to be more than just a barrier blockading the Thames, but there was a neat park there as well and it was here that Jesse and I played pass with a soccer ball we found and ate our picnic. As we were returning from our day out, we were passing through Cutty Sark in Greenwich when, low and behold, the Olympic Torch happened to be passing through at the same time! So, though soaked to the bone, we stuck it out long enough to see the torch go by then headed back to warm up.

Fun and Friends in August!

The month of August was quite busy for Jesse and I as several of our friends and some relatives of Jesse's came to visit. Our first visitor was Meghan, my classmate since Kindergarten and former university roommate. For 3 days Jesse and I entertained Meghan, taking her down the Thames, to the Tower, to a performance at the Globe and to Hyde Park and Victoria Park to cheer on the Canadians participating in the Olympics.[--Colleen] Next came Gerritt, my brother-in-law, with his friend Matt. They had booked a flight to London only two weeks before hand, but we made it work within our schedules. They stayed in my hostel, The Great Eastern, and we had a grand old time showing them around the city. We took them around to all the neat pubs, and even biked through the city during rush hour to meet Colleen at work.[--Jesse] In between our friends’ visits it was also our friend, Nadine's, birthday and so we celebrated by having a grand ol' time at the pub with our friends, Tiffany and Annie, and we even met two Irish guys in town for the weekend. :)